A review by lohanesian
Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon by Larry Tye
4.0
I didn’t know much about Jack and Bobby before reading this book, and what little I knew caused me to think of them as one and the same: progressive to be sure, but they didn’t do as much as they could have on civil rights and entangled us further in Vietnam. Now I know just why Bobby was so loved, and so hated. Hated because he could be a bit of a jerk, the consummate politician who had no qualms about using dirty tricks to get his brother elected or using heavy-handed prosecutorial tactics while serving on Joe McCarthy’s staff (WHO KNEW?!?!). The word the author Larry Tye uses time and time again (quoting people who knew Bobby) is ruthless. Tye does not hold back his criticism of Bobby, whom he accuses of writing a self-serving and untrue account of his role in the Cuban Missile Crisis in “Thirteen Days”.
But Bobby was loved because somewhere along the way, he acquired a heart. The book hints that the cause of his transformation was his brother’s assassination. Doris Kearns Goodwin argues that FDR’s suffering at the hands of polio made him much more compassionate to the suffering of others, and I think his brother’s death had a similar effect on Bobby. He brought attention to poverty in our own United States, advocating for an underclass of people that was ignored by every other politician. Tye describes him in his brief presidential campaign as a “reverse demagogue” who told his audiences the exact opposite of what they wanted to hear, causing even the most cynical of political reporters fell in love with him. I did too, and promptly burst into tears on the metro during my morning commute when I got to his own assassination after winning the California primary (spoiler alert).
Much like Obama, Bobby also had a talent for making a good speech, such as “Ripple of Hope” in apartheid South Africa, and the speech where he delivered the news, in an Indianapolis urban ghetto, of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, tying it to his own pain in losing his brother, who was also “killed by a white man.” It’s enough to give you chills, that in such volatile, painful moments, anyone could still appeal to love and common humanity.
But Bobby was loved because somewhere along the way, he acquired a heart. The book hints that the cause of his transformation was his brother’s assassination. Doris Kearns Goodwin argues that FDR’s suffering at the hands of polio made him much more compassionate to the suffering of others, and I think his brother’s death had a similar effect on Bobby. He brought attention to poverty in our own United States, advocating for an underclass of people that was ignored by every other politician. Tye describes him in his brief presidential campaign as a “reverse demagogue” who told his audiences the exact opposite of what they wanted to hear, causing even the most cynical of political reporters fell in love with him. I did too, and promptly burst into tears on the metro during my morning commute when I got to his own assassination after winning the California primary (spoiler alert).
Much like Obama, Bobby also had a talent for making a good speech, such as “Ripple of Hope” in apartheid South Africa, and the speech where he delivered the news, in an Indianapolis urban ghetto, of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, tying it to his own pain in losing his brother, who was also “killed by a white man.” It’s enough to give you chills, that in such volatile, painful moments, anyone could still appeal to love and common humanity.